CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

A. The Background of Study

Countries have their own mother tounge such as China has Chinese

language, Indonesia has Bahasa Indonesia, and Thailand has Thai in

communicating. It would be difficult for Indonesia, Chinese, and Thai

communicate each other if they just can speak their mother tongue language. In

this case, they need the language that can connect them, that is English.

English becomes the language which makes people around the world able to

communicate as it has been chosen as world-wide language.

In Indonesia, English is utiliezed as a foreign language and plays

important roles for some life aspects. First, mastering English means have a big

chance in obtaining a better and well-paid job. Second, in Indonesia, people

use English as one of the subjects to be examined which has an important role

to get higher education level. Third, English is used as the access to promote

recreation and entertainment throungh media such as movies, some television

programs, and radio programs. The last, English is used as the access to gain

the knowledge and information through computer-mediated such as e-mail,

chat, information source from World Wide Web, and written mediated such as

newspapers and magazines. It is clear that English no more seen as something

new around people in Indonesia.

 In educational context, English had four skills which are learnt by

students; they are listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Even though it has

become a high demanded of necessity, sometimes it is still hard for people

whose English is not their mother tougue to listen to something in Enghlish. It

is supported by seeing the fact that people in Indonesia especially students still

do not understand English movies without the help Bahasa Indonesia on the

screen. Students are unable to get good scores when doing listening

comprehension in the classroom. Also this can be clearly seen from the fact

that there are so many students study at the university level that feel lost ideas

when they are listening to the lecture in the classroom which use English to

communicate or listening to the native speakers through the tape recorder.

Most students feel almost impossible to get the massege of what is being heard

at the moment. So, it means, it is such a hard thing for student in Indonesia in

mastering English Listening skill because bahasa indonesia which fuctions as

the language in the society covers the use of English.

However , listening is important because it is a skill of English that

consists of receiving, constructing, and responding to verbal or nonverbal

massage ( Verderber, et sl., 2008, p.37 ). On the others words, when the teacher

gives listening session in the class by saying a word, students’s ears receive the

word which improves their pronounciation automatically. The brain processes

the word and automatically it improves the vocabulary of the students and at

last the students will try to give respond. It is as important as the other skilla

( speaking, reading, and writing ) because in fact every skill has its own part to
support the other skills but students must have good basic in English and have

interest that will make the learning process go smoother.

Moreover, listening skill becomes one of the skills that should be

mastered since it is a part of Nationsl Examination. Students have to listen

carefully while the record is playing. They need to gain the message from what

is being said by the speaker and then they need to write down the message on

their paper test. Unfortunately it is hard for the students who do not have good

lesson in their school due to the material which taught at school are not suitable

with their major.

English teachers should find out the way out of this situation. Teacher

should know the factors that influence the achievement of student while doing

the listening section. Irrelevant materials, teaching stategy, and failure in

managing students’ motivation can be some factors which are possible to be

influence the achievement of students. English teacher usually teach his/her

students by using available textbooks which is not suitable with students’field

study due to learning materials shortage which is not suitable with students’

needs and their field study.